Absolutely. In the full game, if the tactics have at least the same options from last year, you can set a very low line, choose Long Ball tactic on offense, select "Few" on the number of players on offense and "Many" on defense. This will get you precisely the desired scenario of small team against big team.
Agree, definitely not a case closed scenario. The form arrows cannot be set in Master League, and i donīt think Superstar difficulty in the full game will be higher (altough i agree the difficulty in Master League is usually higher).
Konami may fix this (donīt really believe it) or it may be possible to fix with tactics (this seems more likely to me).
But, if i had to choose between a good midfield play and bad around the box versus bad midfield play and good around the box play, i would definitely choose the later.
Fifa tried to get the midfield to play well, the problem was it didnīt translate well to around the box and made the game look... stalled.